The concatenate operator (&) is used to append a formula, so:
=IF(AVERAGE(B3:B16)18,"Exceeds allowable hours by
"&AVERAGE(B3:B16)-18,AVERAGE(B3:B16))

On Jun 24, 2:57*pm, johnu wrote:
I need to track the hours of part time employees to ensure that the average
number hours per week they work does not exceed 18. *Calculating the average
is easy enough but I would like the cell to display how many hours over the
average they have worked. *For example, if the employee worked 37 hours in
two weeks the cell should say “Exceeded allotted hours by 1.00”. *The formula
so far is =IF(AVERAGE(B3:B16)18,"exceeds allowable hours by",
AVERAGE(B3:B16))
Thank you